


Every me and every you

by winterysomnium



Category: DCU, Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: AU, M/M, crossover of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:16:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red X is on his side only. But what do you do, when there’s a person sharing it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every me and every you

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I told myself rather not to start. Did it anyway. I blame Red X’s voice and personality in TT. He’s kind of really awesome.  
> Title is a lyric from the song “Every you, every me” by Placebo.

Red X is on his side only.

But what do you do, when there’s a person sharing it?

\---

(You _share_.)

\---

“Jason, you promised not to come when I have to leave for work.” Tim opens the door but goes back into the living room immediately, his work shirt peeking in obnoxious colors from his jacket, a breathy sound on his lips. 

(The sigh doesn’t surpass the apartment; tired, pushed out by the slump of Tim’s shoulders.)

Jason shrugs, hands in pockets to shield, to protect anything else his body might need to say. “I’ll walk you.” 

“I’m taking the bus today, it’s too cold outside.”

“Then I’ll walk you to the bus stop.”

Tim grabs his bag, packs his lunch into it and takes out his keys, closing the door behind himself, his small, hastily decorated hallway disappearing behind the cheap door.

( _Cheap_ fits every corner of this street, this district, this life they have to live through; Tim a step ahead of Jason, the gaps between them a barrier Jason recognizes by touch, prodding for its edges, for dips he could hold onto as he climb over it, as he exploits the weak spots.)

An icy punch of cold and snow hits him right as he steps out of the apartment building, lessened only by how warm and big his chest feels at the sight of Tim’s reddened tip of nose, his wool hat and scarf glistering with melting snowflakes. (Jason bets they’ve gotten to his eyelashes too, stuck there as if standing on a springboard, an added weight to Tim’s eyelids.) He catches up to him, lights a cigarette Tim clucks him tongue to, displeased but too cold to do more than glare and burrow his face, up to his nose into the scarf.

The bus stop is a five minute walk Jason chatters through, hands back in his pockets after he finishes smoking; his knuckles red, raw spots.

When they reach the plastic shelter of the station Tim unzips his bag and hands Jason half of his lunch, snags at the cigarette package Jason took out to have a smoke again (he craves them more in the mornings. Craves them to confuse the heat in his bones, craves them to distract him from Tim’s routines, from the boy’s cheek whenever he leans down to kiss him, Tim turning away).

Tim sticks the package back into Jason’s pocket, says: “Eat breakfast instead.” and gets on the bus, lost to the street’s reflection in the windows.

(But Jason knows where Tim likes to sit and he watches that part of the glass-like sky, sees as it gets foggy and Tim writes a message, mirror reversed but easy to understand.

 _See U later, J!_ )

Jason doesn’t wave and the warmth leaves with the bitter smell of fuel, the paper bag he loosely holds between his fingers heavy with a sandwich and some fruit, one of Tim’s Tuesday meals.

It never gets eaten right away, Tim too busy at the supermarket he works at (“Temporarily, Tim.  
You’ll get that scholarship. And if not, we’ll find some other way.” 

“ _We_? This is _my_ problem, Jay. You have enough of your own. And stop stuffing application forms into my mailbox, I know it’s you.”), Jason too occupied by thinking up his next theft.

Robin thinks he’s selfish. What does _he_ know? Living in his Titans’ tower above all problems of the people he ends up catching. Above poverty and the streets he protects.

He thinks Red X is just a selfish, petty criminal.

( _Let him._ )

Because Red X is on his own side.

(But he doesn’t mind sharing it.)

\---

Tim’s foster mother comes up to him and shakes his hand, pulls him into a long, perfume hug, her fingernails short and blunt (nothing like his Mom’s) and she nearly has to kneel to reach his shoulders, her skirt riding up her legs. His foster father ruffles his hair and takes his suitcase; the car shiny but certainly not new, with huge, worn leather seats that remind him of his Dad’s gloves.

They call him _Timmy_ and Tim pretends he doesn’t despise that name, pretends he’s not nervous and nauseous, car sick with anxiety. 

(Timmy. _Timmy Todd_. How _stupid_ does that sound?)

The foster parents have already introduced themselves, explained their names to him when he first met them; Catherine a name he finds a foreign comfort in; Willis a firm, thick sound he’s afraid of.

They tell him he's going to have a brother and his own bed, a desk and a closet and a garden, his own bike and does he like baseball?

(Not really. His Dad did though. Some nights at the children’s home, Tim took his Dad’s old helmet from under the bed and put it on; homesick as any kid that can remember details of their house but never whole rooms, can remember minutes but never whole days, never every word.)

Tim asks about a bookcase and they promise him several shelves, Tim’s head spinning from the way their clothes smell differently than his parents’ did, sharp where they used to be subtle.

(He thought – he thought every Mom’s scent is filled with sweet flowers and metal, with sea salty cotton. He believed every Dad is a mixture of minty aftershaves and newspaper ink, a mixture of the scent of whiskey.)

It’s another thing he needs to get used to; another detail he has to make room for beside his old, _native_ ones, separated in clusters. (He would never replace them. He would never switch favorites.)

But as it seems, all _he_ is – is just that.

(A Replacement.)

\---

Every other week Jason falls asleep, three apartments away from Tim, falls asleep and dreams and is a young teen again, is the thirteen year old that got into too much fights with bullies, is the thirteen year old that loves adventures, the thirteen year old that hates suits and broccoli and Tim.

Hates the smart, obedient little pretender that eats what’s served and doesn’t complain, that makes his bed and does his homework on time, tries to play games with them but is clumsy and looks guilty every time he does something wrong; he hates the boy that slowly grows into Jason’s clothes.

(For a month, Jason can’t sleep at night. He’s terrified he’ll wake up in a children’s home, in the tattered, brick building Tim is from; terrified that Tim’s there to replace him.)

It takes half a year until they trust each other.

(That’s six months of hate. _Cross them out._ )

They’re brothers for another three years, _best friends_ until Tim hits fifteen and crawls into Jason’s bed (blood on the soles of his shoes, blood on the center of his Dad’s chest, blood blood blood under his knees) and they wake up tangled into each other (for the hundredth time) but they’re both hard and Tim moans, gasps into the mess of Jason’s hair and jumps from the bed right after, hides in his clothes and refuses to speak about it; refuses to share what’s inside of Jason’s bones too.

They continue to be brothers and Tim stops coming to Jason’s bed after nightmares, stops occasionally holding his hand, stops walking close and then Jason goes to college and when he comes back for Christmas, their parents want a divorce.

There are long, loud fights Jason won’t listen to and sneaks out of the house, smokes and chats and drinks with his friends and often, Tim declines Jason’s offered hand and stays, hears them out.

(Three months after the divorce their Dad ends up in prison. Their Mom overdoses five months later.)

Jason has been Red X for five years.

\---

That gap, that barrier that undermined their grounds, that made them weak and changed concrete into sinking sand, pavement into tar, changes Tim from brother to stranger in seconds – they built it themselves.

(“ _We_? I want to be close to you all the damn time! So how the _fuck_ is it we?!”

“ _You’re_ Red X, Jason, not me.”

“He was never a problem before.”

“He never used to steal like this.”

“We never used to _starve_!”)

They built it the day of the divorce; alone in their for sale home, alone and miserable as Tim crawls into Jason’s bed again and Jason pushes his hand under Tm’s shirt, rocks against him and Tim sucks on his neck; sucks until Jason takes his chin and kisses him, with his mouth and his teeth and his tongue, with every rib he can feel against his heart, every part of him that needs this and Tim gasps and touches and searches, leaves more than he finds and they take their clothes off too and grind, dig their nails into backs and intertwine their fingers, move slow slow slow, and when it’s too much they jerk each other off, touch until Tim doesn’t sob a moan and Jason doesn’t bite his mouth.

And after they can breathe through their noses again, Tim’s covered in regret. Covered in _brothers, we’re brothers_ , covered in the things Jason tries to feel too, but can’t. 

(And Jason’s bed is full of debris. It isn’t comfortable to lie in anymore; full of Tim in a way that’s suffocating, in a way that he can’t help but miss.)

So he puts on his stolen uniform and becomes reversed, becomes the worse side of his desires, becomes someone he can look in the face without wincing. 

(It’s possible that Red X might be attached to Tim more than Jason is. It’s possible that Red X marks the places he wants Tim to go to. It’s possible that on violent nights, he might have fought with Tim first, half out of costume, his chest his but his mouth X’s; Tim’s “Fine. Do what you want.” slurred with a pained thickness.)

It’s possible that some days, Jason can’t tell where the difference is anymore.

\---

He doesn’t hear about the accident until hours after he knocks on Tim’s door, until he gets no answer and uses his spare keys, until he decides to cook Tim’s favorite pasta and wait for him (at his current work, he has to stay after hours when needed. It happens at least once a week.) waits on his tiny couch and watches TV, watches reruns of shows he never watched before and close to midnight he skips to a news channel; idly goes through the circling headlines at the bottom of the screen. 

Skims throught the words, his eyes darting across the TV, unfocused until _bus_ and _accident_ and _afternoon_ appear in one sentence, until Tim doesn’t answer his phone again, until Jason recognizes that line’s number.

(And when they show a picture, there’s still a spilled, melting message on one of the windows.)

\---

“Now tell us, _Timmy Todd_. How do you know _Robin_?”


End file.
